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Monday, May 14, 2007

The Knucklehead of the Day award

Today's winner is the Motion Picture Association of America. They get the award for the following.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Attention film producers: smoking may now be hazardous to your movies.

The film industry group that rates U.S. movies in terms of their suitability for children Thursday unveiled new rules affecting tobacco use in films that would stop children from seeing movies that glorified lighting up on-screen.

The Motion Picture Association of America, or MPAA, said that in the past, illegal teen smoking has been just one factor in rating films, alongside other parental concerns such as sex, violence and adult language.

But now smoking itself will be considered as a factor and depictions that glamorize smoking, or movies that feature pervasive smoking, may receive ratings that do not allow children into theaters to see them.

The only exception to that rule are films where the smoking is historically important like "Good Night, and Good Luck," which depicted the life of chain-smoking journalist Edward R. Murrow. The film was rated PG, meaning that parents could take older children to see it. Under the new rules, that rating would have remained the same, an MPAA official said.

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The industry group has long been under pressure from health groups to ban children from seeing characters light up in movies, a long-lived screen tradition, and the MPAA's decision fell short of that goal.

MPAA Chairman and CEO Dan Glickman said in a statement, "The rating board ... will now consider smoking as a factor, among many other factors, including violence, sexual situations and language, in the rating of films.

This is dumb and an indirect form of censorship. Why not rate movies for alcohol? Alcoholism is dangerous to a person's health. Why not other unsafe activities? Street racing, sky diving, talking on your cell phone when driving. You get the idea?

The Motion Picture Association of America is today's Knucklehead of the Day.